Not 20 to 25 cents, as is normally the price per kilo of potatoes, but one and a half cents. Per kilo. The potato is currently worth virtually nothing on the open market. “A year of work to get worse financially,” says Maarten van der Loo (57), a potato farmer from Moergestel, as he looks at the mountain of potatoes that has cost him a lot – and at best will yield nothing.
“Yes, that’s a lot,” he says about the three thousand tons of potatoes. In the shed he points to a ladder. “We’re going up here.” Behind the last step there is a catwalk on top of the potatoes, steeply up, and then another. Once at the top, he estimates that the sea of potatoes is five meters deep, he shrugs. “This is less than a day’s worth of food for the Netherlands, so what is a lot?” A lot or a little, what does it really matter with this price per kilo: it doesn’t earn him anything anyway.
What’s going on in the potato market? Cindy van Rijswick sees a perfect storm. She is a global strategist for the vegetable, fruit and floriculture sectors at Rabobank, which finances 80 percent of the nearly seven thousand potato growers in the Netherlands. “The supply was huge because the previous years were very good potato years.”
The demand for potatoes for frozen products has been on the rise in recent years and the climate has been good for the potato farmer. For that reason, extra quantities were grown in 2025. “Both with us and in Belgium, Northern France and Germany. The harvest turned out very well.” Too good, actually. In the Netherlands, 8.5 percent more potatoes were grown this year than last year – while demand remained approximately the same. Unexpected, because it was expected that the frozen market would continue to grow, but this was disappointing.
And so there are mountains of spuds with farmers throughout the country, who “It is important to note that small is small,” says Van Rijswick. These processors want to be sure in advance that they have enough potatoes to make frozen fries, for example. The contracts for the potatoes that came out of the ground were therefore already recorded last year. “It is the part that remains, which is now worth nothing.”
100,000 kilos of green beans
In addition to potatoes, Van der Loo also grows beets, onions, corn and grain, but he relies on potatoes for his sandwich. “Onions are always a pain in the ass, the rest doesn’t yield much either.” He sells his Fontane potatoes, suitable for fries and frozen products, almost exclusively to chip factories. He had made agreements with buyers, but only about the quantity they would purchase, not the price. He sits at the kitchen table, overlooking the shed full of worthless potatoes. of being a farmer, it could also have turned out well.” Normally he has a turnover of “about one and a half million on potatoes.”
His wife Veerle, who has just served her own fries (“of course, we have enough”) at their son’s birthday party, interrupts him. “But it’s never been that bad.” That’s saying something, he’s been doing it since he was eighteen. Veerle: “In any case, it is annoying that you have worked hard for a year, only to have to spend money on your product at the end.” Maarten refuses to complain about it, even though he not only earns nothing,
For every kilo of potatoes he removed from the ground, he alone had the cost of 15 cents: a rent of the land. Ten times more than what one kilo currently yields. Once the potatoes are out of the ground, part of the turnover is lost: the tare. This concerns the gross weight that is delivered and the net weight that the customer ultimately pays for. The buyer settles the waste with the farmer, such as the sand that sticks to the potato. This year there is nothing to settle. Van der Loo had to pay his buyer 1,000 euros for the last delivery, for which he had entered into a contract and had to deliver for that one and a half cents per kilo.
I find it annoying that everyone in the chain after me makes money from my potatoes. From the truck driver to the chip factory and the supermarket
Even that doesn’t bother him the most. “I find it especially annoying that everyone in the chain after me makes money from my potatoes. From the truck driver who comes to collect them, to the chip factory, the supermarket and everyone in between.” That bag of frozen fries in the supermarket is not cheaper because he earns nothing from his potatoes. So the consumer then complains that it is too expensive and looks at the farmer, “But as a farmer you are the culprit and bogeyman these days.”
The potato is not the first crop in surplus this year. Farmers came up with fun promotions for all kinds of vegetables to give their harvest a better use than as animal feed or feed for the incinerator of a power plant. After his contractual obligation to Hak, farmer Johan Bierma was still left with two hectares of red cabbage. Thanks to a contribution from – which fights against food waste – Bierma was able to harvest the cabbages, which were then distributed to food banks.
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Food bank
In the meantime, potatoes are also being given away for free, including by Corné de Rooij, potato farmer and also leader of the local party Gezond Verstand Goirle/Riel. He already handed out 4,500 kilos at the Winter Market in Goirle, writes Omroep Brabant. He will be distributing again next weekend, at the Boerenschuur in Riel – while supplies last.
The term food waste is often used in these types of actions, a term that was hardly used twenty years ago. Van Rijswick of Rabobank: “These types of actions have become visible through social media, but these surpluses are not new.” It remains, she says, nature that the farmers work with. “You may have a surplus one year, and a shortage the following year. The market will correct itself again, growers will plant less or choose a different crop. But this can be very annoying for the individual.”
Van der Loo has built up a buffer in recent good years and does not yet intend to give away his potatoes for free. “Except, but we do that every year, part of it goes to the food bank.” He shrugs and taps his wife on the shoulder. “Maybe we’d better make vodka from it. Then we still won’t have earned anything, but we will have a nice evening.”
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